This invention relates to the control of communications between a network node and end-user communication devices. More specifically it relates to controlling interactions with such devices based on expanded published information about the devices and its network connectivity as part of the notification of presence status information.
Presence services are available for wireline and wireless devices. For example, Internet users have various forms of Instant Messaging (IM) by which the presence status of members of a buddy list can be displayed. Wireless communication devices such as certain cellular telephone services, especially those utilizing push-to-talk technology, may also provide the presence status of members of a buddy list. The end-user communication devices provide presence status information to a central server which maintains an updated list of the presence status of each user. The server notifies any changes to such presence information to entities registered to receive the information (also called watchers).
Maintaining near-real time current presence status information causes an additional overhead loading for the communication network since publication of the presence status is transmitted from the end-user communication devices to the server, and notification of updates are transmitted from the server to subscribed entities. However, many end-users find the availability of presence status information to be valuable and hence service providers must design systems with capabilities to support the service.
Existing communication systems have generally proved successful in providing presence status services. However, as recognized in accordance with the present invention, additional information concerning the communication environment of the end-user communication device could be collected and employed as part of the presence status update transmissions in order to facilitate the improved handling of event notifications to the users. Thus, a need exists for improved status update transmissions with additional information that can be utilized to provide better services to end-users without substantially increasing the overhead burden on the communication infrastructure.